1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates to an integration agent device capable of effectively controlling a node including multi-layered devices and integrally processing a fault, and the fault processing method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to operate a communications network in which various communications devices are connected in a complex manner, operations for controlling the various devices constituting the communications network and managing faults generated by each device are essential.
In the related art communications network operations and fault management methods, each device is controlled, fault information is collected, the cause of a fault is analyzed, and proper measures are taken, through an element management system (EMS), a network management system (NMS), or a terminal configured for each communications network technique or for each layer.
Such communications network operations and fault management methods do not have control problems or fault management problems in existing networks with simple transport network and switching network hierarchies that are managed relatively statically.
However, current communications networks are evolving toward providing a much larger range of services based on changing Internet protocols (IPs), and because various lower layer networks are used, communications networks with multi-layered structures are being generated.
In more detail, an IP communications network may be configured by using diverse multi-layered communication techniques such as L0, L1, L2, L3/L4, and communications networks of each layer are configured to be overlaid. Thus, in a node (area), various devices, including a reconfigurable optical add and drop multiplexing (ROADM)/wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) devices and a router equipment processing the L3/L4 layer, are installed to interwork to provide communications services.
In communications networks with multi-layered structures, however, an alarm storm phenomenon whereby a lower layer fault spreads to an upper layer to rapidly increase fault information within a short time may occur, and in that event, considerable effort and time is required to analyze the actual cause of the fault.
In addition, although the communications network devices of the respective layers belong to a single node, they are separately managed, and worse, because the communications network devices are managed by an NMS or EMS in each layer, an upper management system manually maintains the correlation between communications network devices, through which the upper management system is able to analyze and recognize the cause of faults, and also it is not easy to properly perform a control and management operation.